Ugh, just saw the spoilers…
Well, everyone and their mother knew how it would end, no surprises there. It’s just how it happened.
Be strong, people.

Aimee

Eh…yeah..I’m not too happy to. May make a post about it so people here can discuss.

Niklas B

Wasn’t too bad. I thought Gillen “fixed” it pretty well in UXM 18.

We all knew Cyclops had to win as this is his story, Emma is just guest starring in it. Her becoming Dark Phoenix and killing Xavier would not fit at all.

Khino

I’m not talking about the “fight” per see, nor the result. Pushing a character is fine, heck, it’s what happened with Emma right until Dark Reign. But X-Men is still a team book, whoever’s writing it has to at least try to write in a way there’s no “main character”. Emma was the character marvel was pushing during Whedon’s run, and they still allowed Kitty and Cyclops to shine. Emma’s fanbase has never been so big in feats, so even if I think it’s laughable when they try to write it as if Scott had more control than her, that’s not the problem.

What I mean is that there’s no problem with using Cyclops as the main character for this event, but that’s no excuse for mistreating the other characters involved. And I do know Emma had more presence than any character not called Cyclops so far, but the way I see it that’s not really a good thing. It means she’s getting part of the blame and will suffer the consequences of a storyline that wasn’t really taking her character in account.

Marvel went out of their way to keep Emma and Cyclops together. They made her stay on Utopia when she herself said she should be at the school. Yet most of the time what we got is how hard it is to Cyclops to be viewed as “new Magneto”, not how she feels about her sacrifice, not about how Storm faces the problem of being the moral compass of the team, etc. Now Emma was pretty much the only character on Utopia who was strictly against using the phoenix. Did they take that into account at any time of the event? Or the various phoenix signs she alone received before that? Nope. Even as a guest character, if the character in question is even more tied to the subject of the event (the phoenix) than the main character himself, isn’t it expected that said character will have more impact than Emma got?
And from another spoiler I’ve seen (I think it was the #30 issue of an Avengers book), after losing her part of the bird, while being taken by the avengers, she talks as if she too was willing to use the phoenix. That has nothing to do with this being Cyclops’ story or not, it’s just that marvel is disregarding Emma’s own development because it’s apparently not that important for them. While it’s absolutely important for her to admit to Scott she had psychic sex with Namor right at the middle of the battle.

All the other X-Men are rebuilding post Marvel Now, with potential new storylines and hopefully get written in a way where none of the main characters has to be held back so the writers’ favorite will shine. Emma, just like the rest of the P5, is still not on any of the revealed upcoming titles (All New X-Men is still a maybe). I’m sure she is appearing, I have no doubt about that, but as the titles get revealed, it looks more and more like she’ll be stuck in Cyclops’ team again. If that’s how it is, from all the X-Men, she is the one that already has the worst start of all, since her motivation will be once again just an extension of Cyclops’ own motivations.

I hate to be that guy to say these things, I know it sounds pessimistic, but Emma has been held back for around 3 years now, ever since Cyclops has become undisputably the main character. And now that it seems the focus won’t be on him anymore, when her character gets a chance to go back to her own story, all I see are signs that they are dragging her down with him.

My “be strong, people” was more of me expressing how I think Emma’s character won’t be at a very good position in Marvel Now, though that’s of course just my prediction.